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Live in Newness of Life in the Holy One
(Overcomer Wu)
“Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” --Romans 6:4
To walk in newness of life is what God has called us, not to some new improvements in life, some new habits or attitudes or ways or motives or prospects, not even to a new view and mindset on life, but to live an altogether new life! To give us this new life, the eternal Son of God was incarnated, crucified, buried, resurrected and ascended and even descended as the Spirit. It is not an improvement of the old life, or the old life evolving to a new life, or a lower life rising to a higher plateau, but a new life (of Christ) entering into, rooting itself and growing in the human heart – it is a life wrought out of death, by the death of "the Prince of life." It is becoming a new creation in Christ “... old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor 5:17).
The operations of the Holy Spirit came down in power (Act 1:8), entering men's heart -- “Whom God has given to those who obeyed (believed in) Him” (Act 5:32), that out of the old He might bring forth the new. We are gradually being transformed by the renewing of our mind (Rom 12:2) and through the renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Tit 3:5b).
How far-reaching and extensive is God's love towards us that while we were yet dead in sins and offenses, He sent His Only-Begotten Son in order to rescue us from the old life and make us partakers of His new life and His divine nature (2 Pet 1:4). Our heavenly Father had brought forth all the divine resources of love, power, and wisdom to meet the critical needs of a case which would otherwise have been wholly desperate and hopeless. Thank our heavenly Father for such great and far-reaching love that we cannot even begin to comprehend!
Yet we must realize that the man from whom the old life has gone out, and into whom the new life has come, is still the same individual. The only difference is that the same person who was once "under law" must now learn to live "under grace." His outward features and limbs are still the same; his intellect, imagination, capacities, and human responsibilities are still the same, however, there is one undeniable and irreversible changed: “old things have passed away; all things have become new.” (2 Cor 5:17).
Through our identification with the crucifixion and death of Christ (Rom 6:3-5) the old man has been slain, and the new man now lives. This is not merely an improved version of the old life with a cosmetic surgical touchup and remake to humanly struck out the defects and smooth out the roughness. It is not a patched up of an old garment, the same wall repainted, or an un-swept whitewashed temple. It is the complete bull-dozing down of an old house and completely rebuild from the foundation up. Otherwise God would not call it a “new creation,” nor would the Lord Jesus have affirmed with such firm, explicit condition as He did in His meeting with Nicodemus, the divine law of exclusion from and entrance into the kingdom of God (Jn 3:3): "Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” Yet how few in our day believe with true conviction that "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit" (Jn 3:6).
The Word of God is replete with verses that indicates that we are indeed born again into a new creation in Christ. Just to quote a few verses: God calls us "new-born babes" (1 Pet 2:2); "new creatures" (Gal 6:15); a "new lump" (1 Cor 5:7); a new man" (Eph 2:15); recipients of "a new name" and are being built into a "new city" (Rev. 2:17; 3:12). This new man in Christ, having begun in a new birth, unfolds itself in "newness of spirit" (Rom 7:6); “have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him” (Col 3:10); according to a "new covenant" (Heb 8:8); walks along a "new and living way" (Heb 10:20); and ends in the "new song” and the "new Jerusalem" (Rev. 5:9; 21:2).
A genuine born-again Christian is one who has been "crucified with Christ," (Gal 2:20) who has died with Him, been buried with Him, risen with Him, ascended with Him, and is seated "in heavenly places" with Him (Rom. 6:3-8; Eph. 2:5,6; Col. 3:1-3). Therefore, he "reckons himself dead unto sin, but alive unto God" (Rom 6:11). Henceforth, he does not yield his members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but he "yields himself unto God, as alive from the dead, and his members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Our desires and thoughts should be characterized by: "seeks the things which are above, where Christ is...", and "mortifying his members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence and covetousness, which is idolatry" (Col. 3:5).
This newness of life is summed up by the apostle in two things, "righteousness and holiness." "Put off," he says, "the old man, which is corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; put on the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness" (Eph 4:21-24, literally "righteousness and holiness of the truth," that is, resting on or springing out of the truth). In our new standing or state as a new man in Christ, we have a new moral character, a new life, a new joy, a new work, a new hope, to which we are called. He who thinks that our faith in Christ is made up of anything less than this knows nothing yet as he ought to know.
These are weighty words of the apostle: "we are His Masterpiece" (Eph 2:10). Of Him and through Him and to Him are all things pertaining to us. Chosen, called, quickened, washed, justified and sanctified by God Himself, we are in no sense our own deliverers. The quarry out of which the marble comes is His; the marble itself is Christ; the digging and hewing and polishing are the works of the Holy Spirit through our cooperation with His operation: He is the Sculptor and we the statue. At the same time, we humbly admit that there is nothing we can do to add to His Masterpiece except to yield to the willing and the working of His good pleasure (Phi 3:13).
Indeed, "We are His Masterpiece," says the apostle. But this is not all. We are, he adds, "created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them." The plan, the selection of the materials, the model, the workman, the workmanship, are all divine. Though it does not yet appear what we shall be, we know that we shall be "like Him" (1 Jn 3:2); His image reproduced in us, Himself represented by us and expressed through us; for we are "renewed after the image of Him that created us" (Col 3:10). It is to the image of Christ that God has "predestinated us to be conformed, that He might be the first-born among many brethren" (Rom 8:29), having "chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love" (Eph 1:4).
It is "to holiness” that God is calling us (1 Thes 4:7); that we should have our "fruit unto holiness" (Rom 6:22); that our hearts should be "stablished without blemish in holiness" (1 Thes 3:13); that we should abound in "all holy conversation and godliness" (2 Pet 3:11); that we should be "a holy priesthood" (1 Pet 2:5); "holy in all manner of conversation" (1 Pet 1:15); "called with a holy calling (2 Tim 1:9); "holy and without blemish before Him in love" (Eph1:4). Thus, we need to present not our souls alone but also our "bodies" as a "living" and more importantly a holy sacrifice to God (Rom. 12:1), remembering that these bodies are not merely "a sacrifice," but "a temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor 6:19). Holiness is one of the prime character of God. Thus, from the Old Testament we have verses such as (2 King 19:22, 1 Sam 2:2, Job 6:10, Psa 22:3, 71:22...) called God the “Holy One.” all the way to the last book of the Bible to Him whom they praise Who sits upon the throne in heaven as "Holy, holy, holy" (Rev. 3:7, 4:8). It is to the image and likeness to Christ that we are to be transformed, to "that holy thing" which was born of the virgin Mary, to Him who was "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners" (Heb 7:26).
We are called to be holy even as He is holy: “Be holy even as I am Holy” (1 Pet 1:15-16). Holiness suggests not only separation from evil and from an evil world, but it is separation from anything that is common unto God and for His service. It is priestly separation for priestly service. It is distinctiveness such as that which marked the tabernacle and all its vessels, separation from every common use. It is separation by blood, "the blood of the everlasting covenant." This blood (or that which it signifies—the death of Christ) is interposed between us and all common things, so that we are dead to sin, to the world, to satan, to our old man, and even our self, but alive unto God, alive to righteousness, having died and risen in Him whose blood has made us what we are: the saints of the Most High God and a “holy nation” (1 Pet 2:9).
Practical holiness requires our consecration of our time, our living, our priorities, and extends to every part of our being. It ought to spread over our entire life, influences everything we are or do or think or speak or plan, small or great, and outward or inward, negative or positive, our loving or hating, our sorrowing or rejoicing, our recreations, our business, our friendships or relationships, our silence or speech, our reading or writing, our going out and our coming in, our whole person in every part of our being from our spirit, soul and body. It is the God's desire and plan that we live such a holy consecrated life to reflect and express Him to the full, so that we may corporately become the Holy city New Jerusalem (Rev 21:2, 10) that manifests God's holiness to its full perfection! What a calling and great privilege that we could shine forth the very holy attribute of God through us! May we take practical steps each day to live in newness of life by living a holy life!